A Blessed & Happy Mother's Day!
Praise God for our mothers. They are the special people we cannot live without: physically, emotionally, and in my case and others, also spiritually. It was my mother who led me to the Lord.
Most of our experiences as children were with our mothers. They were our constant companions and they had a powerful and effective monitoring system, which we call “gut feeling.” Once they feel concerned about anything, specially their children, they were always right. Sometimes, they hesitate to apply on their children the “board of discipline.” Perhaps, because they often could not stand to see their children suffer. I remember as a child when I did wrong, my mom would always say what I would consider the most scary and powerful phrase, “wait till your father gets home.” I knew immediately I would be in trouble.
The apostle Paul, in his desire to describe their roles and responsibilities as a Pastors and ministers to the Churches in Thessalonica, he used the essential duties of motherhood. He used the term “nurse” in reference to the dedicated service mothers would give. Our mothers, from the start are always the Front-liners to care for all children. That is why the words coming out mostly of the children’s cry is “Mommy, mommy”when a child is in need or feels unsafe.
Mothers in this passage describe them as:
1.Gentle - a care that is balance, tender and sensitive to the need
2.Affectionately desirous - their desires for children come from intense affection and genuine concern for their growth and maturity
3.Willing to labor and suffer - always willing to sacrifice and labor night and day
As Pastors and leaders, we can learn much from our mothers on how to effectively and affectionately nourish, mentor, guide, and train as we minister to God’s people.
Godly and courageous mothers are rare these days. Gone were the days when they prioritized their children more than themselves. Mothers today have been mostly replaced by surrogates, nannies, baby sitters, caregivers, and Day care institutions. The works of Motherhood have been relinquished to others and to the care of the unbelieving world.
Another destructive phrase that are being taught and encouraged is this statement, “It takes a Village to raise a child.” I believe this was mentioned and popularized by Hilary Clinton in her book with the same title.
Raising children is the primary responsibility of the parents in the home. If we allow the whole village to raise our children, we will see our children become what the society wants them to be, not what God wants them to be. Because of this we now have lack of moral standard at home and school. Children are more confused about gender identity. There is a widespread ungodliness and violence. In schools and in some progressive Churches, our children are actively taught and exposed to the humanistic ideas and to the destructive influence of the social gospel.
In order for our children to be raised according to God’s standard of morality and living, we need to pray for all mothers to know Christ as Savior. Let us continue to pray for all Christian mothers to remain strong and to never give up their children to the world. One great example is enroll the children in their molding years to go to Christians schools. Let us Pray that our Pastors and leaders in Churches to have the boldness in preaching and teaching the Word of God, without compromise.
Conclusion: We live in a perilous times and our children are constantly bombarded with ungodly influences and immoral behaviors in school and community. This is not the time for the God-loving people to surrender to what is trending, socially acceptable, and to political correctness. Let us pray for our mothers and all parents to have the courage to fight, speak out, and level up in this good fight of faith. We are doing this for the sake of our children and their future generation as the Lord tarries His coming. Let us do this faithfully all for the glory of our GOD!